First introduction to 3Par

    On December 1, HP began accepting orders for 3Par disk arrays , which were included in the HP StorageWorks product line as a result of the purchase of the eponymous company specializing in the development of virtualized storage systems.

    First, a little historical background. 3Par was founded in 1999 by three former senior engineers at Sun Microsystems server department, Jeffrey Price, Ashok Singhal and Robert Rogers, and the company name is formed from the first letters of the names of the three of its founders (Price / Ashok / Robert).

    The company launched its first disk array with powerful InServ virtualization functions in September 2002, and since then more than 6,000 companies and organizations have become its customers, and the total capacity delivered to InServ customers has exceeded 100 Pb. Large amounts of data are stored on InServ by both traditional buyers of enterprise-class storage systems (banks, industry and government agencies), as well as large service providers. For example, 3Par products are used by 7 of the 10 largest global providers.

    Although 3Par has been actively developing its business in the Old World in recent years, so far it has not had partners in Russia. But now Russian customers will be able to purchase InServ through HP channels.

    3Par InServ line of disk arrays

    3Par InServ Disk Array Line The

    powerful InServ virtualization features that were originally built into the architecture of the first generation of these disk arrays make them an ideal cloud computing service platform that requires fast and flexible allocation of disk capacity for several thousand virtual machines. 3Par systems improve storage efficiency by:
    • Thin Provisioning Dynamic Capacity Allocation, which saves up to 50 percent capacity,
    • automatic distribution of data between several storage levels with different indicators of the cost of one gigabyte and access speed
    • lower energy costs and cooling storage systems.
    Thanks to the InServ autonomous management features, storage administration costs are also significantly reduced. For example, using virtualization, creating a LUN takes 15 seconds, simplifying support for service levels for all applications working with the array (even in the event of hardware failures), and the entire system quickly adapts to changing business requirements for applications. Finally, on one InServ using virtual domains can safely store data from different departments of the enterprise and even different companies. We will talk more about the unique architecture of the hardware and software InServ, which allowed us to implement this functionality, next time.

    In the HP StorageWorks line of products, 3Par disk arrays took the place between the P6000 / P8000 modular arrays (former EVA) and the monolithic P9500 arrays (former XP). HP is positioning them primarily as a platform for cloud computing. And since, according to forecasts, the share of cloud storage in the general market for storage systems will increase significantly in the coming years, then, apparently, over time, InServ can become the main HP StorageWorks platform for large customers. This is also indicated by the appointment of 3Par's former CEO David Scott as head of the entire HP StorageWorks division. Nevertheless, the development of EVA and XP will continue - the P9500 was released in September, and HP StorageWorks executives promise to update the P6000 / P8000 in 2011.

    Also popular now: